If you would like to contribute to an immediate need (especially while GPU work is dwindling at GPUGrid)...

I recommend installing Folding@home and setting it to work on "Any disease", which will allow your resources to be used for new COVID-19 Coronavirus tasks. They have spun up some GPU projects a few days ago, and even some CPU projects more recently. Links below.

The software is a bit clunky, but it is also relatively easy to set up. For the short term, I am allocating all my beefy GPUs resources toward working on Coronavirus, and about half of my CPU resources.

Note: I have a lot of passion for GPUGrid, and will definitely come back to it. I'm just recommending a temporary (few weeks/months?) switch, to help an immediate need.

Toni, will these work units be GPU, CPU, both? I know to some that may be a silly question but GPUGrid has dabbled with GPU, CPU, ARM (Android), and virtualbox in the past. Just wanted to know what to look forward to.
____________

The real conundrum is the preparedness of the public health services and/or governments which is put to the test by this world wide pandemic.

Also:
1. The unsanitary food processing practices of China are antediluvian.
2. ImPOTUS has ravaged science in America and our response is many weeks behind where it should be. The US government fell on their face.

Does anybody know of any cool methods to somehow have my GPUs crunch Folding@home if they have a work unit available to them, but if they don't (Since there are server outages there sometimes) automatically switch over to BOINC?

I have .bat files that can turn BOINC GPU Computing from GPU Suspended to Use GPU based on preferences ... but I guess I need to do more research into finding a way to detect Folding@Home slot fulfillment for my GPU devices.

Does anybody know of any cool methods to somehow have my GPUs crunch Folding@home if they have a work unit available to them, but if they don't (Since there are server outages there sometimes) automatically switch over to BOINC?

I have .bat files that can turn BOINC GPU Computing from GPU Suspended to Use GPU based on preferences ... but I guess I need to do more research into finding a way to detect Folding@Home slot fulfillment for my GPU devices.

If you were following the greatest BOINC team site in the world, which everyone should be ;) you'd know that all you need to do is set exclusions in cc_config for FahCore_21.exe and 22. This works for GPU, which is all that I'm doing.

If you were following the greatest BOINC team site in the world, which everyone should be ;) you'd know that all you need to do is set exclusions in cc_config for FahCore_21.exe and 22. This works for GPU, which is all that I'm doing.

I'll think about setting this up, but don't know if it'd work the way I want it to, on my PCs that have 3 GPUs.

Thanks for pointing this parameter out, I never noticed it. I've been running separate clients for CPU and GPU for years, and rarely run projects that have GPU work on the CPU, so what I posted works perfectly for me. Actually I run separate clients for every GPU as well so I have better control over what's running. I tend to forget most folks' setups aren't like mine. This <exclusive_gpu_app> is a nice option for mixed work.
____________Team USA forum | Team USA pageJoin us and #crunchforcures. We are now also folding:join team ID 236370!

This is a low level heavily scripted option but might make a useful project if you have time or the inclination.

Step 1
Use nvidia-smi to check for low GPU temperature....eg less than 12W. This will indicate no activity in Folding@home.(nvidia-smi can output selected figures such as power, I have used this in the past)

Step 2
On low temp use boinccmd to set gpugrid as active and retrieve a wu.

Step 3
pause 300 seconds, then use boinccmd to set gpugrid status: fetch no more tasks

Step 4
use either boinccmd or nvidia-smi to check for activity in gpugrid. When gpugrid task complete, fetch folding@home task. Havent scripted folding@home so cant comment on commandline control of fetching tasks there.(this could render this script pointless)

It looked to me like FAH is accessed via telnet, which might be a pain. Haven't fully researched it all. Also, I'm attached to all 55 projects, with GPU work allowed for about 5 some of which also have CPU work I want, so I'm not interested in suspending projects :)

Interesting, 64 tasks released without Wrapper (using ACEMD2 v9.23 Windows). Did someone forget to use ACEMD3?

Please tell this old newbie how you knew that, I'd be much obliged.

Last year in April, GPUgrid embarked on an upgrade of their WUs so they would be compatible with CUDA 10 and Turing based GPUs. The new design of the WUs used "Wrappers" to make the WUs more portable and easier to create for the Project team.
The last of the old WUs issued by GPUgrid were ACEMD2 with a version number of v9.xx
The release of the new WUs was in October last year. The new WUs have been referred to as ACEMD3 with a version number of 2.xx

If you check the Server Status page you can see "Short ..." and "Long ..." WUs. These are the legacy ACEMD2 WUs that wont run on Turing based GPUs and havent been issued since October last year (Windows only).

We are currently running WUs listed as "New Version of ACEMD".

At the bottom of the Server Status page you can see a detailed list of the ACEMD2 WUs which lists the current batch of "old" WUs.

Is the FAHClient_22 use CUDA?
I coulndn't find a clear answer for that on their forum. (It is planned as far I could find anything about it.)
I get power consumption with that app as much I get with acemd3.
I've never experienced that an OpenCL app could draw as much power as a CUDA app does.
Is there a way to force work assignment besides restarting the FAHClient service? (like pushing the "update" button in BOINC manager.)
It is very hard to get any work from FAH...

Regarding getting work in F@H... Whenever it gets stuck and isn't getting work, I have been using FAHControl (the Advanced Control program), to tell the PC or slot(s) to Pause, then tell the PC or slot(s) to Fold. I think this resets backoff timers, and might even allow it to hit different servers when trying to find work.

Regarding keeping the GPUs busy when F@H it out of work... I have setup my PCs with a BOINC GPU Exclusion for FahCore_22.exe .... so that, if none of the GPUs in the PC are working on F@H GPU tasks, it will at least allow BOINC to put those GPUs to work on BOINC projects.

.. in cc_config.xml ..

<exclusive_gpu_app>FahCore_22.exe</exclusive_gpu_app>

I'm not an expert, and I don't even know if this is the best approach towards keeping my PC GPUs busy (especially when 2 of my PCs have 3 GPUs in them, and I want all 3 to be crunching!)

I haven't been to F@h for a couple of years. DartMouse wrote a series of Linux scripts to deal the various bugs. He hasn't earned CURE in over a year. I don't know what they do or how they work. I merely offer them for your perusal, caveat utilitor:

on theregister.co.uk there is a notice saying that Folding@home has broken the exaflops barrier and is now the fastest computer on the Earth. Is this possible?
Tullio

It is possible, that according to their benchmarks the connected hosts computing power reached that level. However I couldn't get a single workunit for 1,5 week before I abandoned it, so many GPU can be counted towards computing power without getting a hold onto a work unit.

Of course I do not know, how they exactly measure computing power, but after the announcement of Nvidia, and the joining of many Seti guys, a single user with a somewhat outdated GPU (Rx480) I really felt useless there. Now I upgradet to 2070 OC, but never tried the app again. It was really annoying to pause-start-pause-start to reset the counter, just to see, there aren't any WUs.

I have been running SETi and using GPUGRID as my backup project for quite some time.

Since the demise of SETI I have been running GPUGRID for my GPUs and rosetta on my CPUs and all has been fine. I have been running 2 WUs (one each) on my 2 nvidia 1070s and 9 wus on my 12 CPU AMD computer (leaving 1 CPU and 12 Logical CPUs idle). That gave me 2 GPUs busy and 2 WUs "in the wings" ready to run. BOINC 7.14.2 Win-10.

BUT

Since the introduction of ACEMD 2.10 I am only running 1 WU (on GPU 0) nothing on GPU 1 and 3 WUs "in the wings".

I have plenty of memory (32Gb total) plenty of page file (64Gb) and plenty of free disk space (232Gb) as well as "13 process slots". I have scheduled 4.5 days of work plus .1 day of "additional' work".

As far as I know the only thing to change is the move to V2.10 .

any ideas on where to look to get both GPUs running would be appreciated

so many GPU can be counted towards computing power without getting a hold onto a work unit.

That's not how it works. Like with BOINC, the processing power estimate is based on actual returned work, not registered hardware in the system. So yes, they did break that barrier and if they managed to get enough servers up to completely saturate every connected host, it should be considerably higher still. See https://stats.foldingathome.org/os

Where can I find information on Folding@home resource usage in BOINC terms? For example, how many virtual CPU cores does it use? Does this vary with the Folding@home Power setting?

So far, it seems that running both BOINC and Folding@home at the same time slows down the BOINC work quite a bit, due to the number of background processes being much more than the number of virtual cores.

So far, I'm only running CPU work for Folding@home, and plan to continue this until they have a steady enough supply of GPU WUs that there will be little variation in the fan noise from my computer.

For example, how many virtual CPU cores does it use? Does this vary with the Folding@home Power setting?

Yes. Moreover you can configure it manually if you select Configure -> Slots tab -> CPU -> Edit -> set/select the number of CPU threads.
It shouldn't be a prime number, except for 2 and 3 (so it shouldn't be 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23 etc. Fahcore will reduce the number of its threads by 1 if you set one of the forbidden numbers.)

So far, I'm only running CPU work for Folding@home, and plan to continue this until they have a steady enough supply of GPU WUs that there will be little variation in the fan noise from my computer.

You can set up BOINC to stop GPU work when the FahCore_22.exe is running by adding it to the exclusive GPU apps (lower pane) in the options menu.
FahCore_22.exe is located at

Is there any config available for Folding@home to enable a Turing card?

I couldn't add the GPU though the graphical user interface with the v7.6.9, as it always gave number -1 for the GPU slot.
So I edited the %AppData%\FAHClient\config.xml file, I added the following line:

That's strange, there should be the CPU app in the avx folder, which is Core_a7.fah\FahCore_a7.exe.
%AppData% should point to the current user's AppData\Roaming directory, similar to:
C:\Users\Your username\AppData\Roaming
so the whole path should look like:
C:\Users\Your username\AppData\Roaming\FAHClient\cores\cores.foldingathome.org\v7\win\64bit\Core_22.fah\FahCore_22.exe

This disabled BOINC use of the GPU if a Folding@home CPU task was running, so I doubt if that was correct.

You are right, it's the CPU application.
Are you sure you put it in the lower pane?

I couldn't add the GPU though the graphical user interface with the v7.6.9, as it always gave number -1 for the GPU slot.
So I edited the %AppData%\FAHClient\config.xml file, I added the following line:

<slot id='1' type='GPU'/>

before the last line:

</config>

Now it works.

Good point. I have complained about that more than once on the Folding forum.

Another method is just to set the "opencl-index" to "0", which works for my Nvidia cards on Ubuntu. It may depend on the card/motherboard/OS combination, but the automatic setting never works for me on Ubuntu. Maybe it works on Windows, at least for AMD cards

I set the virtual core limit for Folding @home as you suggested. However, the change has not taken effect yet. I suspect that it won't before the next CPU WU starts.

It should take effect immediately, however I had to do it twice, carefully clicking on "OK" and "SAVE".

I tried again, with that change, and this time it took effect immediately. However, it appeared to take the number as meaning real CPU cores, instead of virtual CPU cores. Trying again with half of that number also worked immediately, but appeared to leave an extra fraction of a virtual core in use.

Reducing the virtual core count for BOINC by 1 appears to have stopped the CPU contention.

That's strange, there should be the CPU app in the avx folder, which is Core_a7.fah\FahCore_a7.exe.
%AppData% should point to the current user's AppData\Roaming directory, similar to:
C:\Users\Your username\AppData\Roaming
so the whole path should look like:
C:\Users\Your username\AppData\Roaming\FAHClient\cores\cores.foldingathome.org\v7\win\64bit\Core_22.fah\FahCore_22.exe

I couldn't add the GPU though the graphical user interface with the v7.6.9, as it always gave number -1 for the GPU slot.
So I edited the %AppData%\FAHClient\config.xml file, I added the following line:

<slot id='1' type='GPU'/>

before the last line:

</config>

Now it works.

Good point. I have complained about that more than once on the Folding forum.

Another method is just to set the "opencl-index" to "0", which works for my Nvidia cards on Ubuntu. It may depend on the card/motherboard/OS combination, but the automatic setting never works for me on Ubuntu. Maybe it works on Windows, at least for AMD cards

Under Windows 10 with an Intel CPU, it did not even create a GPU slot for my Nvidia GPU.

My attempts to log in to the Folding forum have always failed, so I haven't been able to complain there yet.

Idle slots in Folding@Home are quite normal right now. I think they are still swamped, and still routinely see some idle slots. They have their own mechanism to ask for work and keep asking at certain times. You might be able to reset the timers by pausing idle slots, and then unpausing them.

Please be patient if you experience idle time as we face the COVID-19 pandemic together! We are working like mad to start simulations of COVID-19 proteins. The enthusiastic response to our effort has been tremendous and has sometimes emptied our queues. This is a great “problem” to have as there is no end to the valuable science we can do, its just a matter of giving us some time to get more running.

It is for this reason -- slots idle -- that I set Folding@Home CPU to just use 1 CPU thread on each of my PCs, and then have BOINC use my other CPUs/threads. And I have a BOINC GPU "Exclusive Application" set for FahCore_22.exe ... so that *if* Folding@Home is using the GPU, BOINC won't, but if Folding@Home isn't using the GPU, BOINC will.

It is for this reason -- slots idle -- that I set Folding@Home CPU to just use 1 CPU thread on each of my PCs, and then have BOINC use my other CPUs/threads.

They seem to be separating the CPU work units into large and small now, with n<9 being the dividing line from what I can discern.

There is apparently more work for the "large" ones; my Ryzen 3950X running 31 out of 32 virtual cores has been busy almost all the time for the last week. On the other hand, when I ran my i7-9700 (8 full cores), it was out of work so often that I took it down. The situation is fluid, so YMMV, but if you have a large number of cores to throw at it, it could work.

By the way, to my surprise, I am averaging around 500k PPD on the Core A7 CPU work; that is up in GPU territory (Ubuntu 18.04.4).

It is for this reason -- slots idle -- that I set Folding@Home CPU to just use 1 CPU thread on each of my PCs, and then have BOINC use my other CPUs/threads. And I have a BOINC GPU "Exclusive Application" set for FahCore_22.exe ... so that *if* Folding@Home is using the GPU, BOINC won't, but if Folding@Home isn't using the GPU, BOINC will.

That's close to what I'm aiming for, but it doesn't look like I'll be able to finish the setup until my computer downloads at least one GPU WU.

They seem to be separating the CPU work units into large and small now, with n<9 being the dividing line from what I can discern.

There is apparently more work for the "large" ones; my Ryzen 3950X running 31 out of 32 virtual cores has been busy almost all the time for the last week.

31 is a prime number, so your CPU app most probably runs only on 30 threads. (check the log at the point when the CPU app started.)
BTW I doubt that there's much benefit above ~20 threads on a 16 core CPU.

On the other hand, when I ran my i7-9700 (8 full cores), it was out of work so often that I took it down. The situation is fluid, so YMMV, but if you have a large number of cores to throw at it, it could work.

Usually I have CPU work on my i7-9700F (6 cores for FAH) and i5-8500 (4 cores for FAH).

By the way, to my surprise, I am averaging around 500k PPD on the Core A7 CPU work; that is up in GPU territory (Ubuntu 18.04.4).

I doubt that. You should check the PPD when there's only CPU work on your host.

The CPU app (FahCore_a7) is the toughest I've ever run.
I had to decrease the overclocking of my old i7-4770K from 4GHz cores + 4GHz uncore to 3.7GHz cores + 3.5GHz uncore to reduce heat output (decreasing voltages as well) and to avoid abrupt restarts / lockups on that host.
There is much variation in the power consumption of the CPU between workunits.
Roughly saying the higher the credit, the higher the power it uses.